


Take More Than The War

by Mayberryberry



Category: Ian Rutledge Mysteries - Charles Todd
Genre: A nameless witness dies in like the first paragraph, Angst, Barebacking, Ghost Sex, M/M, PTSD Rutledge, PWP, Rimming, and SMUT, everything else is just Hamish roasting Rutledge, non consensual haunting, that's it that's the violence in the chapter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:48:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22062082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mayberryberry/pseuds/Mayberryberry
Summary: Inspector Ian Rutledge is on a case when a witness is killed in front of him. The war returns in all it's screaming detail and Rutledge loses himself except, of course, Hamish is there. Hamish is always there to find Rutledge when he's lost, to anchor him, to remind him...(...to totally rail him. look I'm a simple woman with simple tastes, it's a fic about Hamish roasting Rutledge while fucking him into a mattress, come on in)
Relationships: Ian Rutledge/Hamish MacLeod
Kudos: 3





	Take More Than The War

**Author's Note:**

> Just so we're all clear; Written for the Inspector Ian Rutledge Books by Charles Todd (sorry Chuck if you ever find this it would be cool of you to not read it) but not for any one specifically. To freshen up the context: Ian Rutledge was an officer in WWI and was forced to execute his Sargent, Hamish MacLeod, at the Battle of the Somme when Hamish refused to lead another charge into enemy machinegun fire. Seconds after Rutledge killed Hamish, he and his entire company were buried alive in an explosion, but Hamish's body provided Rutledge with some protection. He was the only survivor.  
> Rutledge now lives a relatively usual post-war life as an inspector with Scotland Yard, except he's got a sort of ghost Hamish behind him at all times, who provides observations and commentary, and reminds Rutledge every now and then about what a twit he can be.

The interview had been a disaster. Rutledge had no better way to frame that. The man had been listless, pale, had trouble focusing, lost his train of thought halfway through his sentences. He had spent his time scanning the world around him, as though the hills and trees and open fens were just out of reach, just past his fingertips. He had stood by Rutledge and looked like a man standing in a tiny room, with horror close at hand but invisible, the thickness of a painted backdrop all that kept him in these kind green hills. 

"'Ware!" Hamish barked.

The shot had sounded while the man was already falling. An absurd shot. Rutledge had thought, his first feeling had been incredulity. The sniper with the rifle must have been over the far rise, over 200 yards away. 

And the bullet had hit this colourless, terrified man at his right side, tunnelled a bloody furrow over his belly, and ripped through his guts to shatter his left hip. The man had dropped to all fours, whispering prayers, and Rutledge had gone down with him, trying to see the damage, trying to see how he could help, trying to give him cover.

The man looked up at him, finally, some colour lighting his face, his eyes bright and hard and glinting. 

"Goddamn you, fucking London bound shit." The man clutched one hand over his stomach, then reached out, grabbed the front of Rutledge's shirt, hauling him in until he was face to face with the dying man, this witness Rutledge had promised to protect. 

"You brought me out to die, you bastard." The man's breath was bloody, his eyes hard focused on Rutledge. 

Under him, with a rip and a slick, sliding noise, the man's guts fell from his belly, glossy and purple to the grass. Blood fell in a sheet. The man shook, his hand jerking on Rutdlege's shirt front as his weight shifted, and his expression flipped from rage to terror. 

"Help me!" 

"It's an hour ride t' nearest nurse," Hamish said.

"For the love of god!" 

"He's gutshot, already dyin'" Hamish spoke over the man's screams, perfectly audible. Perfectly sensible.   


"Sit back," Rutledge commanded. His voice sounded calm, cold. He was an officer again, and the noise of artillery fire was all around him. Hamish was real and warm and whole over his left shoulder. 

The man only screamed, and clutched at Rutledge's shirt with both hands. 

"Captain," Hamish's hand fell on Rutledge's shoulder. "Your orders?" 

The trenches rose around him, he was drenched to the knee in the mud, down here in the dark with the crack and bark of the guns overhead. Dirt showered over his back and shoulders and the man before him was dying by inches. 

Another wrench, another tear, and the man shuddered, his eyes jerking as this focus shifted inexorably inward. Rutledge didn't see what else had fallen, it was dark down in the trenches. Too dark, and it was too late, much too late. 

"Help me," The man's breath was gone, his lungs no longer working to draw air while his diaphragm was sliding down to the mud. 

His hand pawed wildly at Rutledge's side, his fingers hooking briefly on the edges of the service revolver. 

"Sit back man," Rutledge snapped. He was an officer. 

The man dropped to the side, looking up at him, eyes wide mouth open, the raw animal reek of the man's open bowels was enough to make Rutledge certain he was going to die whatever he did. 

"Steady," Rutledge said. He reached for his revolver. 

The man died at another shot. The noise was jarring, snapping through Rutledge and nearly blinding him with the shock of it. The sniper hadn't moved, had waited until Rutledge and the dying man were apart again and calmly taken the man's head this time. 

He'd missed his heart shot, but not this one. 

Rutledge's mind skidded out on the loose sanding of sanity over the sheet-ice of terror in his head. There was... No way for a sniper to hit a man in the mud at the bottom of the trench... there was no way... 

"You just wanted to finish yon poor bastard for yoursel'." Hamish's voice again. 

Rutledge sat up, saw green fields and blue sky and the song of a lark as it darted above him. He was back in England. It was 1920. The war was over. The war was over and he had come home. 

"And you brought me with you," Hamish snarled. His voice coming from so close Rutledge could feel the Scot's breath on his ear.

Rutledge didn't vomit, in the end. Instead, when he felt his stomach heave and his breath grow short from panic, he stood and flung himself up the rise where the sniper's shot must have come from, not sure if he would find the killer, and what he would do to him if he did. 

The hills were empty when he arrived. Empty but for a patch of earth where a horse had stamped in alarm or anger, and for a stretch of ground where a man had lain flat at the height of the ridge. 

There was no one there. No one to chase, nothing to do. A man had died nearly in his arms and whoever shot him from this place, whoever had had the aim and the training and the weapon to kill him from this far away was already long gone. Rutledge walked back down the hill, took his time, breathed the clean air and looked at the sky, the birds, the clouds overhead as he went to his car, and fetched out the tarpaulin, and wrapped the body as well as he was able. Hamish was quiet as Rutledge hauled the body to the car, and only muttered a brief curse when he dragged the dead man up onto the backseat. 

Banished from his usual haunt, Hamish was silent on the long, quiet drive back to the village. 

Rutledge owed a great deal to his training. He spoke to the doctor when he stopped at the surgery to deliver the dead man. He gave a brief report to Constable Pettypaw to tersely explain what had occurred. He spoke to Mr and Mrs Spinner when he came in just before supper time and waited until he could take a tray up to his room. Then he shut the door behind him, locked it, and sank to his knees the moment the tray was safely, and quietly, set down at his desk. 

Then he began to shake. Then the trenches rose around him. Then the air was filled with the noise of the guns and the screams of the dying. Then he saw Hamish again, lying near dead with the firing squad shaking in their places, frozen by what they'd done, and Hamish lying in the mud of the trench staring around, calling for Fiona, for his beloved Fiona. 

"Aye," Hamish's voice was soft in his ear. "You remember me best just before you killed me." 

"You gave me no choice," Rutledge spoke the words on a groan.

"You knew it was daft. All the lads going over the top, one after another and ready to die just so some armchair general could pluck a pin from a map. And you went along like you never had a thought in your head. You were smarter than that." 

"It was a sacrifice we swore we would make. All of us. The good of the many outweighs the few." 

"You swore. Aye, but you weren't going over that wall."

And Rutledge had nothing to say to that. He had gone over the wall, to retrieve his wounded men, on more than one occasion. But he had been the officer. When the fight was at its fiercest, he had only stood with his feet warm and dry in the good boots he could afford, with the whistle between his teeth, waiting to sound the charge that would kill the men before him. 

His men. Tired and terrified and aching with loss and grief and hopelessness. England had seemed very far away when they had lived and died on the Somme. No one cared what they were fighting for, they had nothing left but each other. 

"And you turned five of them to kill me, you put that on them. Not just yourself." 

"You refused an order under fire," Rutledge's voice was harsh, his throat hot and tight. 

"And you saw to it there was nothing left for me but your brand of mercy. You saw to it my fellow soldiers watched me die and you would have used that to drive them on. You would have used that to drive them to die." 

"They all died," Rutledge didn't know how long he'd been crying.

"All but you," Hamish agreed. 

And Rutledge curled forward, tighter over his knees, and covered his mouth with both hands and sobbed like a wounded animal. The guns thundered on, and the dying men screamed, and Hamish lay dying before him, crying out for Fiona. 

He spent a long time in the mud of the Somme.

When he could hear birdsong instead of gunfire, and the trenches, when he looked, were replaced with the good if chipped furniture that Queen Victoria had probably seen on her visit to this hotel in 1850, he staggered upright. The sun was down, and there were three letters slid under his door. Hamish was quiet, and Rutledge felt wrung out, his bones ached. The tea was stone cold on his tray, but he drank off a cup black, and scooped the letters off the floor. 

One from Constable Pettypaw to inform him that horse had been stolen from Juniper Farm a week ago, one a message taken by Mrs Spinner at the telephone from Sargent Gibson, a terse message in short-handed code to inform him that the witness he had been to question was the heir to a fortune in question, and one from the blacksmith's apprentice, the young man he'd met earlier who had helped him with the car. That was simply a message to inform him that the part he was in want of could be had at the blacksmiths tomorrow if he chose. 

"The world goes on," Rutledge said. The wonder of that discovery when he came home from the war had worn out to desperation, and since faded to a quiet, sucking inevitability. 

"Oh aye," Hamish said, "Your world." 

There was nothing left for Rutledge tonight. The killer had found their mark, and that had narrowed the list of suspects, the list of people who could benefit from the death, and the risk. There was next to nothing left here from him. 

He ate sparingly from the good tray Mr Spinner had made him in the kitchen, and went to bed, aware all the time of Hamish, retired to his corner to stand watch. 

"You agreed to go out on yon hills to tempt the killer," Hamish said conversationally.

Rutledge was lying flat on his back in the old canopied bed, his head aching, his limbs still watery from leftover adrenaline and terror. The terror he'd borrowed from the war years. 

"You never thought that witness was a target. You thought you were." 

"I didn't think the killer could be so far out of the village," Rutledge answered aloud. 

Hamish snorted. It was an elegant noise, Scots having a natural gift for understated scorn when replying to an Englishman.

"You wanted to give the killer an opportunity to take a shot at you. Do you want to die so badly?" 

"That wasn't why I suggested the hills," Rutledge insisted. 

"Like hell," Hamish's voice was drawing closer, he had left his corner and that was unusual. "You thought you'd die, or failing that, that nothing would happen. You never really thought yon witness was a target." 

"It was a vicious killing," Rutledge said. He shut his eyes, not wanting to see Hamish in the dark. "He missed his heart shot." 

Hamish snorted again. He was at the foot of Rutledge's bed, pacing back and forth. Rutledge could hear him. 

"That wasn't handled very well," Hamish said at length. 

"I didn't think I would..." Rutledge trailed off. 

"Didn't think you would turn coward again?" Hamish asserted. There was a low note of laughter in his voice, savage and low. "Aye, you never thought that when you killed me either I'm sure." 

"I didn't want to kill you damnit," Rutledge felt his chest tightening. He wanted to open his eyes so he couldn't fall asleep. If he slept now, there'd be nightmares. He didn't want to alarm Mr and Mrs Spinner with his screams. 

"You were willing enough to kill yon witness," Hamish's voice held the same savage laughter. "You didn't even notice, you went out without your revolver." 

Rutledge's breath caught. 

He had taken his revolver, his service weapon had been at his side, the dying man had clawed at it. 

"Hooked on your notebook, t'was in your pocket," Hamish laughed at him. 

The gun had been with him, surely, he had brought it with him, there was a chance that he was going to find a killer waiting for him out on the hills he had brought his... 

He had undressed for bed and had not needed to take it off. 

Rutledge had been unarmed when he told the dying man to steady himself for a killing blow.

"Aye," Hamish's voice was soft now, and he was smiling. He turned, walked up the bed until he stood next to Rutledge. "You never had it. Just wanted it." 

"I didn't want to kill you," Rutledge whispered. He kept his eyes shut, his face barely turning away from where Hamish stood over him at his bedside. 

"But I still died," Hamish whispered.

"You refused under fire," Rutledge said again. He said that again and again and again, every time, every day it felt like. The reason Hamish had died was a simple one, it had to be. It had come from far over Rutledge's head and a long time ago. No officer could bear the risk of a disobedient soldier. No officer could tolerate the division from the ranks. 

"I refused to die," Hamish's voice was close now, as though he leant over Rutledge, whispering into his ear. "But you were so much more deadly than any of the hun." 

"I was your officer." 

"You were my friend too, I thought." 

And Rutledge had nothing to say to that. 

"Look at me, Ian." 

It took Rutledge a moment to control himself, rein in his fear and dread into something that wasn't a wild creature inside him. "You're not real." 

"Are you so sure?" 

Rutledge could imagine a weight pressing down on his mattress at his shoulder. It felt almost as though a man stood at his bedside, leaning down on one arm. "You're not real." 

"Not real?" Hamish sounded amused now. "Is this real?" 

Rutledge felt something flick his ear. 

"This real?" 

Felt a cool press of fingers on his temple, over his cheek. 

"This real?" Hamish's voice was soft. 

Rutledge felt lips press to his own in a kiss. Felt Hamish's stubble catch in his. Felt the heat and weight and size of the Scot above him. 

"Hamish," Rutledge whispered the words and felt his lips drag over Hamish's. He never spoke Hamish's name. Only in the privacy of his own mind did he remember it, hold it like a lifeline, hold it like Hamish himself was drowning at the other end. 

Now, the name felt good on his tongue, familiar and real and gentle god, he had missed Hamish MacLeod. He didn't let himself linger on it.

"I'm real enough for you, always have been," Hamish spoke the words into Rutledge's mouth, half threat and half promise. "You brought me home with you, didn't you? The only thing you brought back from the war. The only thing that mattered to you this much." 

"You're..." Rutledge began, be he didn't have the heart to argue. He had brought more than Hamish home. But he couldn't think what. But surely he had.

"Even let fair Jean go," Hamish was smiling as he spoke. "Broke your engagement for me." 

It had been to let Jean out, Rutledge's mind rushed to answer that. It had been because Jean was horrified by the sight of him, a broken man with no visible scars. But he said nothing. He was focusing on the touch of sheets and duvet over his chest sliding down, baring his belly and hips and knees. 

"Let her go, but you kept me," Hamish whispered.

The bed dipped, and Rutledge squeezed his eyes shut tighter, tipping his chin up to find Hamish, still just above him, still ready and waiting. He kissed Rutledge back when their mouths met, smiled without breaking the kiss, tipped his head and pressed Rutledge down onto the pillow when he opened his mouth. 

"You'll keep me to your grave," Hamish whispered, breaking the kiss and leaving Rutledge breathing hard with his mouth open and his eyes tight shut. Hamish just laughed. "I'm all you'll keep so long." 

"Hamish," Rutledge fisted his hand in the bedsheets. 

"Alright, you're alright now," Hamish's hand slipped up under Rutledge's nightshirt, flat palmed, hand spread wide, pushing his shirt up and stroking up from his abdomen, over his belly, over his chest, until Rutledge's nightshirt was rucked up over Hamish's wrist and arm, and Hamish settled his hand around Rutledge's neck.

"Might put you in your grave," Hamish whispered. He squeezed, very slightly, his hand cradling the curve of Rutledge's throat. "You ever thought of that?" 

"Often," Rutledge said, his voice barely broke on the word, his breath coming short. 

Hamish just laughed, used the hand on his throat to push Rutledge further down into his pillow, and followed him down, his open mouth catching Rutledge as he caught his breath. The kiss became messy when Rutledge pushed up into it, and Hamish let him, keeping pressure on his throat to hold him down, using his tongue to part Rutledge's lips, never letting Rutledge control him. 

"Is that all you want?" Hamish's kept one hand on Rutledge's throat, the other on his side, thumb stroking back and forth over the skin. 

"Don't leave me," Rutledge felt the words leave him on a breath. He could barely hear himself. Hamish of course, could hear him if they were in hell. He always could.

"Will you take me with you to hell?" Hamish laughed at him, pushed a kiss to the corner of his mouth and their chins rasped audibly as he slipped down, kissed Rutledge's collar bone just below where his shirt was rucked up. 

Rutledge felt a tiny tear form in the sheet clenched in his hand. 

"I led you to hell once already." 

"They tell me France is quite nice when there's not a war on" Hamish said reasonably, his mouth still pressed to skin. He kept one hand on Rutledge's throat and his other hand stroked down Rutledge's side, a hard press, flat palmed, Hamish had judged breeding animals with his hands before the war. 

"We found hell there," Rutledge replied, then broke off when Hamish set his teeth into his skin, nipped him sharply, just over his heart. 

"Can feel your heartbeat," Hamish said. "It's half mine I suppose." 

Rutledge wanted to tell Hamish he was welcome to it. Wanted to tell him he could have all of it, but Hamish shifted down and sideways and licked over Rutledge's nipple with a broad, hot sweep of his tongue, and Rutledge shut his mouth and shuddered. 

"Did you think I was hellbound for refusing orders?" Hamish said. 

"No," Rutledge gasped. Hamish's hand was still tight on his throat. 

"No," Hamish repeated and opened his mouth wide over Rutledge's nipple, set his teeth and bit, sucking so Rutledge jerked and arched under him. 

"Hamish," Rutledge could barely breathe, but he liked how the name felt on his tongue. 

Hamish just reset his teeth, bit down again, and sucked, a slow, burning pressure that kept building. His other hand was at his hip, thumb idly stroking back and forth. Then as Rutledge arched, pushing up into Hamish's mouth on reflex, Hamish hooked his fingers over Rutledge's pants and pulled them down over his hips. 

Rutledge gave a half-muffled bark as the band dragged over the head of his dick, cotton scraping over precum, scratching over the slit. Hamish's hand bushed up his length, open-handed, the palm just barely touching him. 

"Hamish," Rutledge said again, this time like a plea. 

Hamish eased his bite, licked over the nipple a few times in gentle apology, kissed the spot where his teeth had nearly broken the skin, then nipped at the skin over Rutledge's rib, kissed down, dragged his lips over the lines of ribs, the occasional small scar, the bruises from the fall two days ago.

"You think you're hellbound?" 

Rutledge was biting his lip, trying to keep silent, didn't know how to answer that question anyway. 

"Do you?" Hamish asked, then nipped him again, a quick, sharp pain that jolted Rutledge every time. And every time, Hamish kissed the spot where his skin felt bright and hot. His hand closed around Rutledge's dick, loose fist sliding slow and gentle up and down, friction and warmth and no urgency. 

"I must be," Rutledge managed. 

Hamish just laughed again, soft and low and nuzzled his jaw against Rutledge's belly before pushing a kiss own into his skin, open-mouthed and hot. There was a scar under Hamish's mouth, a tiny ball of scar tissue on Rutledge's stomach that felt cold until Hamish's tongue pushed against it. 

"I must be," Rutledge said again, and this time his voice felt choked. 

"For me? Or for the others you killed." 

"The others were a duty," Rutledge said, not thinking as he squirmed under Hamish, arching up into his hand, trying to thrust up into that loose fist and Hamish anticipated him every time, loosed his fist or pulled away, left him agonizingly hard with nothing to ease it. 

"Ah, the others were your duty. What was I then?" Hamish rubbed his cheek against Rutledge's skin, his scruffy stubble scuffing over the bare skin below and beside his navel. His breath was hot on Rutledge's dick. "What was I when you killed me?" 

"Gentle god, Hamish," Rutledge gasped. 

"God was not with you in France when you killed me," Hamish said. He pressed his hand to Rutledge's hip to hold him down, and kissed the head of his dick as it tipped towards him. He let it lean against his mouth, his lips moving over the swollen, blood-hot skin as he spoke. "And God is not with you now." 

"Hamish," Rutledge felt sweat track down his temple, into his hair. 

"What was my death to you?" Hamish's lips were moving over Rutledge's dick, his teeth and tongue just touching in the course of his words. 

"It was my duty," Rutledge said, but it sounded like a lie, even to his own ears. 

Hamish laughed, low and dirty, and pulled his hand from Rutledge's throat. 

Rutledge barely had time to gasp in a breath, when he felt Hamish's fingers on his lips. He barely suppressed a groan as he sucked them into his mouth. 

"You don't lie often, Ian," Hamish said quietly. He pressed a kiss to the base of Rutledge's cock, his hand pressed flat so Rutledge rose fully hard and aching from the curve between Hamish's thumb and first finger.

Rutledge was grateful for Hamish's fingers in his mouth, grateful he didn't have to think of an answer to that. 

"Up, get up on your knees," Hamish grunted, pulled his hand away, himself up and back, pulling Rutledge's pants loose as Rutledge pulled his legs up, out from under the duvet, out from his pants, rolling over on his elbows and knees with Hamish behind him, settling between his spread thighs.

"For an officer, you obey orders well enough," Hamish remarked and leaned down to give a broad, slow lick up over Rutldeg's opening. 

Rutledge went face down into the pillow, muffling the noise he made as Hamish pressed his face down, pressed his tongue in. His scruff rasped at the skin of his ass and Hamish was quiet, his mouth busy, lips and tongue working at Rutledge's opening until he twitched and his dick was so heavy it ached. Hamish pressed one finger to the hard little ring of muscle, barely more firmly than his tongue, and Rutledge just groaned into his pillow, arched over his knees and pushed back, Hamish's finger slid in easily. 

"Easy then," Hamish said, laughing softly then pressed his mouth to Rutledge in a sucking kiss as he pressed his slick finger in, slow and warm, pressed in until he pushed his knuckle to hot skin, pushed down until Rutledge jerked and moaned. When Hamish slid his finger out, he pulled down, pulled Rutledge open just enough to slip his tongue in again, curling and pressing and warm inside him. Slipped his finger back in slick and hot and deep. 

"Hamish," Rutledge was panting into his pillow, his back cold and his belly warm and Hamish was slowly, methodically driving him mad in more ways than one. 

"Ian," Hamish replied with a casual ease to his insubordination. He slipped a second finger into Rutledge, held him open wide enough to slip his tongue back in, and reached down, curled his fingers, and Rutledge tensed, realizing what Hamish was looking for before he found it. 

"Prudish English," Hamish muttered. He put his free hand flat on Rutledge's back below his shoulders, stoked down his spin to his lower back, and pushed down. 

Rutledge felt the arch and the shift inside him, bringing Hamish's fingers up against something inside him that made his dick jerk, dribbling pre-cum in an unseemly arc over his bedclothes. 

"Hamish," Rutledge's voice cracked as he shook his head to clear his mouth and nose from the bottom of his pillow. He kept his eyes tight shut, buried in clean linens and goose down. But his mouth was wide open, panting. His knees spread and his thighs shaking and Hamish kissed the burning ring of muscle spread wide with his fingers and rubbed his back, stroked over his hip and reached down deep into Rutledge again and again and again. 

"Shh," Hamish rubbed his back, added a third finger, and this time didn't need to push Rutledge down before Rutledge arched for him, bringing Hamish's fingers to where he wanted them. His belly gave a sick, heavy jerk again, and he could smell the pre-cum as it fell to the sheets. 

"Good man," Hamish laughed, bent his head, spread his fingers and licked a broad hot line over Rutledge's hole. Covered it with the flat of his tongue afterwards as Rutledge twitched against him. His fingers slid in and out, easier and deeper, curling up into Rutledge and making him jerk and shudder at every finely aimed press. 

Hamish always had good aim, damn him. 

"Hamish," Rutledge savoured the name on his tongue, panting with his mouth open and his eyes still buried in the pillow. "Hamish please." 

"Alright," Hamish slowly withdrew his fingers, holding Rutledge open just enough to kiss at the gap, flick his tongue inside him one last time, apparently just for the satisfaction of hearing Rutledge let out a pained whine and shudder. Hamish just laughed. "Alright Ian," Hamish said again, and pressed forwards, over Rutledge, the rasp of army-issued uniform trousers rough and warm on Rutledge's bare skin. Hamish had preferred his uniform to almost anything. 

It made him gasp. 

Hamish pulled back, and there was a chime of a belt buckle, and the soft fumbling of soft clothes and Hamish's hand went flat and hot over the swell of Rutledge's ass, and pulled him open. The broad head of Hamish's dick pressed against him, slid up and caught briefly where Rutledge was stretched and slick and twitching. 

"Ian?" Hamish's voice, the low burr of it echoing in Rutledge's chest. 

"Hamish," Rutledge could only breath the name out as he panted, "Hamish..." 

The first press raised the hair on the back of Rutledge's neck, made him catch his breath and bit his lip as he scrabbled for purchase, clawing at the sheets until he caught the headboard and held on. Hamish paused, then tipped forward again, heat and weight and the strength of the young man behind him driving Rutledge against the headboard, pressing him forwards not fast, not rough, but with the slow, building momentum that came from certainty, decision. 

"Did you want this?" Hamish whispered into Rutledge's left ear. 

Always behind him, always on his left. His sergeant. 

He was fully seated inside Rutledge now, pressing deep and hot and so wide, Rutledge thought he'd have trouble breathing around him. 

"What?" Rutledge was clinging to the headboard, his eyes tight shut, mouth open, every muscle in his body shivering at increments. Hamish didn't move. 

"Did you want this? Did you think it would go away once I was dead?" 

Silence filled the room, Rutledge couldn't breathe couldn't move, Hamish was buried up to the hilt inside him, burning hot and filling him up, his hands on Rutledges hips, the soft-spoken Scot curled over Rutledge, covering him. 

Like he had when the shell hit. Like he had when Rutledge was buried alive, and Hamish's dead body had somehow fallen over him, covered him so he could breathe until he was dug out. 

Rutledge put his head down, shuddered and keened into the pillow, and Hamish pulled back, almost entirely out, and thrust back in, all the way back in, and this time, he used both hands to press Rutledge's back down, forcing his back into an arch, and Rutledge caught his breath shuddered at the heat and pressure that slid inside him, deep and wide and so, so hot. Hamish used his hands to keep Rutledge in place, pull him back, used his weight to bear Rutledge down into the mattress with every brutal heavy thrust. Panted with his mouth open against Rutledge's left shoulder, kissing and sucking and biting into the scared skin until Rutledge's dick jerked and rutted against the clean sheets below him, untouched and weeping on its own. 

"Hamish," Rutledge cradled the name in his mouth, repeated it over and over, "Hamish." 

"Did you want me so badly?" Hamish's voice in his left ear again, not letting up his rhythm, fucking Rutledge down with a steady, brutal drive. 

"Hamish please," Rutledge's voice broke. He was still clinging one-handed to the headboard, bracing himself, his shoulders canted as he pressed his face to the pillows. 

"Did you want me badly enough to take me from Fiona," Hamish growled. "Did you want me so badly you were willing to take me for yourself?" 

"No," Rutledge said, desperate and this time, it wasn't a lie, even if he had to speak between gasps. "No I wanted you... to marry Fiona... wanted you happy and... god Hamish... I wanted to die." 

"That's true enough, I could see that, even if you didn't at the time." Hamish put his head down on Rutledge's shoulder, resting his forehead. "God, Ian, y'could have had me in wartime." 

"Your officer..." Rutledge managed, his voice broke on a sob, "I couldn't." 

"Ah, right, course. Prudish, uptight, and bloody-minded about tradition. Willing to send your men to their death but not take advantage of their virtue. You English are a hell of a people." 

"Bloody minded Scot," Rutledge felt himself smile though, open-mouthed, still gasping, his face wet in the warm cradle of the pillow. 

Hamish just pressed a kiss to Rutledge's back, between his shoulderblades, where his skin was damp with sweat and the fine hairs stood up in goose flesh. His beard scraped over the skin, and Rutledge moaned. 

Then Hamish broke his rhythm, the steady, driving thrusts that had been sending drips of pre-cum from Rutledge's dick for interminable minutes and sending him softly mad, stopped. Hamish pulled back, drew himself out. 

"No," Rutledge groaned, twitching and cold and he'd never felt empty like this, he had never needed anything so much in his life as he needed Hamish MacLeod. 

"Turn over," Hamish growled, one hand on Rutledge's hip, tugging at him. 

"No I'll..." see you. Rutledge didn't say that. But Hamish tugged at him. 

"Just keep your eyes shut," Hamish murmured in his left ear, and this time, pressed a kiss to his neck when Rutledge turned his head, licked up the shell of his ear, and slowly drew the lobe into his mouth and sucked. 

"Hamish," Rutledge groaned. His face buried in the pillow, eyes safely shielded from any sight of Hamish. 

"Turn over Ian," Hamish spoke with Rutledge's ear in his teeth. "I want to see you." 

And Rutledge could deny Hamish nothing. He kept his eyes shut, moved as Hamish pulled and pushed and arranged him into position. then caught his breath as Hamish set himself over his opening again, and quickly hid his eyes in the crook of his elbow. 

"Gentle god," Hamish whispered as he pressed himself into Rutledge, and slipped in easily, faster and deeper than he'd intended apparently, because he froze, one hand on his dick to guide it in, the other fisted beside Rutledge on the mattress. "Are you alright?" 

"Yes," Rutledge reached up, willfully blind and clumsy and stupid, he was  _ stupid _ but he found Hamish's shirt front under his fingers, made a fist and pulled. "Yes, Hamish, deeper, more I need more..." 

Hamish rocked his hips forwards, seated himself to the hilt in Rutledge's body, and began again.

It was harder than before, faster, and the angle had changed and it was hard for Rutledge to think as his dick lay heavy and blood-hot over his stomach jerking and dribbling and generally being undignifiedly apparent how badly Rutledge had wanted this from Hamish MacLeod. Wanted it still. Rutledge kept his arm over his eyes, tried to get enough air to beg Hamish to go harder, faster, deeper, even when that was impossible, even when he was already perfect. Even if all he wanted to beg for was Hamish's forgiveness. 

Hamish got his hand behind Rutledge's knees and pressed until he had Rutledge spread below him, until his legs were folded back beside Rutledge's chest and Hamish was fucking him wide open, hard and steady and so deep Rutledges dick jerked helplessly over his belly. 

He came quite suddenly like that, untouched and over his stomach, biting his forearm to keep from crying out as the force of the orgasm shocked him, whited his mind out, drowned out the noise of the guns and the screaming and all the Somme. 

Drowned out everything but Hammish's voice, whispering in his left ear. 

"Easy, Ian, Easy now you're well clear of the war. You're well clear, and you've got me right here, I'm right here with you." 

Rutledge opened his eyes, not breathing, not thinking, and looked up to find Hamish MacLeod curved over him, freckled and sun stained and his brown hair shot with fox-fire red from the sun, his short beard a scruffy ginger. The uniform coat unbuttoned, his shirt open at the collar. Above him, the bowl of the night sky stretched away, bright stars burning above the noise and smoke and death. 

Hamish MacLeod panting and flushed and his dark green eyes met Rutledge, and he smiled. 

"I'm right here with you," Hamish said, and he bared his teeth, and this time it was a threat. 

Rutledge shut his eyes, let out a long, shuddering sob and subsided, rolling over on his bed and snatching both hands up to his chest, curling up on his side and making fists of his hands, one still slick with his own spit. 

The war was over. 

Hamish was long dead. 

Rutledge was alone, haunted, mad. He was broken in ways no one would ever see.

He woke an hour or minutes later, cold and quiet and hollow with empty, howling loss. His bed was mussed, the sheets yanked from their neat corners, and his sweat had cooled. Hamish was back in his corner, not even a shadow to mark him. And Rutledge's belly was itchy and crusted with the drying remnants of his dream. Self-inflicted dream. Self-inflicted fantasy. 

The self hatred was so familiar it barely registered. Like any man beaten past feeling, that last kick just feels like more weight, more pressure, there's a point where you can't register any more pain. 

And Hamish had been that for him, too much pain. 

"Aye," Hamish said from his corner, mild and pleasant. "But who made that your problem?" 

"I did," Rutledge whispered, curled where he lay in the hollow of the bed. "I do." 

"At least you know that much," Hamish whispered. 

This time, Rutledge stayed awake long enough to clean himself up, clean his bedding with a dismal knowledge of just what Ms Spinner's washerwoman would find, and redress himself in his pyjamas before he lay back, wondering if Hamish would let him sleep now. 

"Aye I will," Hamish said, "You'd best rest. At least now, you won't dream of me so easy." 

"It was a duty," Rutledge insisted, slipping back and down into sleep. 

"I'm sure it was," Hamish said as he dropped off. "And I'm sure you only keep me for the reminder. The responsibility." 

Rutledge could feel the salt where he'd failed to wash the tear tracks from his temples. 

"I'm sure it has nothing to do with your heart." 


End file.
